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Review of: Unaccustomed Earth: Stories
by Jhumpa Lahiri
Vintage (2009), Edition: Reprint, Paperback, 352 pages
There is an art to writing a short story, of course, but also an art to getting a book of short stories not only published, but read, and appreciated. And thank goodness that Jhumpa Lahiri has mastered both of those arts, because if she had not, we would not have this brilliant and insightful collection today.
The first five short stories of Unaccustomed Earth are unconnected in plot, while the last three tie together, a play in three acts. But in truth, all of the stories share common themes, common feelings, common characters. There is a through-thread here, something that ties together what Lahiri wants to say about children and parents, about home and love and change. This, to me, is the mark of a truly successful collection of short stories.
What is so extraordinary, however, is how she manages to connect to the reader, as well. These stories, of Bengalis leaving their homes for America and having children there, of Bengalis struggling with change, their own, those around them, going back to their roots or making new ones, the stories are so specific, so filled with words and foods and customs that are completely unfamiliar to many of us, to many Americans. The exotic nature of all that is part of what entices. But there’s also an understanding, a familiarity, something that, even wrapped in such unfamiliar trappings, we can relate to. When she writes in the first story (from which the book takes its name), of a woman who has recently lost her mother,
“She could not explain what had happened to her marriage after her mother’s death. For the first time since they’d met, she felt a wall between them, simply because he had not experienced what she had, because both his parents were still living.” (p.26)
Lahiri is speaking of isolation, and it is not just the isolation of the immigrant, but the isolation of someone who has lost someone they loved. She reaches past Bengali or American, beyond wives and fathers and daughters, to the simple pain of grief, the hardest and most unavoidable of human emotions, and thereby strikes a painful but true chord. And when she does this, the reader understands that this sense of isolation is, strangely enough, something we all share the experience of, at one time or another. This is the essence of, I think, what Lahiri is trying to do and to say with all of the stories: to say that we connect in our loss, and our feeling of alienation, and that there is something in that, something small but something to hold onto nevertheless.
I loved this collection of stories possibly even more than I loved her novel The Namesake I’ve just added her earlier Pulitzer-winning Interpreter of Maladies to my must-read list — Jhumpa Lahiri is fast becoming one of my favorite authors.
Comment at Librarians do it Between the Covers.
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It’s late for snow this year — we’ve usually gotten a nice pile of it by now. Pretty soon I’ll be tired of it, I know. But today’s the day, with just a couple of inches on the ground and the sun shining and the sky blue. Now’s when snow is nice. I mean, Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney agree with me:
So does The Guardian (UK), which has a winter quiz of sorts up — “Creative whiting: snow in books“.
As the season’s first flurries of frozen ice crystals provide God’s way of telling you to stay indoors with a good book, it’s an excellent time to plough through our quiz on literary snow.
Fourteen questions, with quotes about or literary references to snow, with questions like, “9. Which novelist is often blamed for our idealisation of a snowy Christmas?” (That’s an easy one, compared to the rest.)
Give it a try!
I only got half of them right — without cheating or looking anything up, in my defense.
Comment at Librarians do it Between the Covers.
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Somewhere around this time of year, you start seeing a lot of “Best Books of 2009″ lists. Publisher’s Weekly did theirs back on November 2nd, exhaustively breaking down the list into a handful of categories. The New York Times came out with a Top 10 for 2009, with every genre sharing that short list. NPR helpfully posted a compilation of all their “best of 2009″ offerings, listing everything from “Best Books to Share With Your Friends” to “Picks to Warm a Winter’s Night”. And Salon asked a number of authors, including Judy Blume and Nick Hornby, what their favorite book the past year was. (Judy’s was Nicola Keegan’s “Swimming“, and Nick’s was Jess Walters’ The Financial Lives of the Poets.”) As we all know, I love lists — but I confess I found the grocery-list-style, just-list-a-bunch-of-books methods to be somewhat overwhelming; Salon’s approach was far more interesting, as it gave the authors — people we know have a vested interest in the written word — a chance to tell us why a particular book struck them. It’s a little like having Julia Child explain to you what’s so great about duck.
 I haven’t finished my reading for 2009 yet — there are almost three weeks left in the year! — but unless something new blows me away in that time, I would have to say that the best book I read in 2009 (and this was a tough call!) was actually the very first book I read in 2009: Queen of the Road: the True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 Miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus with a Will of Its Own, by Doreen Orion. I read it while I was on vacation, and loved every page; as I mentioned in my review, I was sorry that it was over, surely the sign of a great book.
I should also give honorable mention to two other books I very much enjoyed: Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees (I know — everyone else read & loved it years ago, but I just didn’t get to it until now) and Unaccustomed Earth, a collection of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri. I’d very much liked Lahiri’s novel The Namesake, and was even more enchanted by this latest offering. She’s fast becoming one of my favorite authors.
Now it’s your turn. It doesn’t have to be your favorite book ever, or a new book. Just the best thing you read in the past year. So, what’s the best book you read in 2009?
Comment at Librarians do it Between the Covers.
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